moscow defeated me this past weekend. it was one of those moments when i was frustrated with not being able to communicate, living far from home, needing something familiar. but i got the opposite. my roommate gerri and i had decided to go shopping at a big food store on saturday. the kind that is only found in huge shopping malls. the kind that "is the costco of moscow" we were told. it had everything! it was the expat's mecca! we were excited. i printed out some recipes i wanted to try, even one for chocolate cookies! if we were headed to the expat shopping mecca, surely they have chocolate chips! so i made a huge list. and looked it up online, feeling confident about navigating the store's website in russian. i found the address of one of the stores, mapped it out on my new moscow metro map app, we got out our rolling suitcases (small ones) to fill with all our goodies, and off we went! it was grey, and drab, of course, and quite chilly. but no matter! soon enough, i'd be cooking coconut lime chicken and whipping up a batch of cookies! grey, drab moscow streets are worth that, for sure. 40 min later, we arrived to a huge hole in the ground. a construction site, right where the address said to go. but there were tons of people walking around with Ashan bags...so it had to somewhere close by! i asked a few folks on the street in my best broken russian, only to find out that we had to take a bus from the nearest metro stop to get to it. as badly as i wanted cookie ingredients, i did not feel confident about navigating the mini-bus parking lot shouting "Ashan?!?" to all the drivers hoping they understood and would take us there. not something we wanted to do. so then i called my friend brittany who was planning on going the next day, and asked her the address she had. i mapped that one, and we were off. i was much less confident in the mapping, but we thought what the heck, we had our suitcases, let's go for it. we must have looked so funny, dragging those suitcases on and off the metro. sigh. anyway, another 30 minutes later and at our second address, we had much more luck. found it, in a HUGE shopping mall. along with about 4000 other muscovites. it was overwhelming. and i forgot i needed cash. and the 2 atm's in the store were out of cash. so i almost gave up. the store was teaming with people. like a beehive. they were buzzing and crawling all over each other. and the produce and the carts. and people were waiting at the front for carts to be returned, then beating each other out of the way to get them. it was too much. but i thought, i'm here, i'm not coming back anytime soon, so let's do it. so i found more cash machines just outside the store, and i braved the hive. i bought toiletries, which was actually a good find. razor blades! and then i attempted my list...i found flour and sugar. and i ran into gerri in the wine aisle (ha!) and we picked out several bottles of nicely priced french, chilean, and south african wines. and then i promptly lost her. i made my way to the check-out, loaded up my suitcase and went to wait for gerri at our designated spot. i waited and waited. and waited. and texted her. and waited. and then i walked along all of the 37 million check-out stations to find her. she's chinese. in a sea of caucasians. it was easy to pick her out. i went to help her pack her suitcase, only to find out the check-out lady wouldn't allow the suitcase for some reason. so we offered a couple of other bags we could use instead, and she rejected those, too for some reason. she was very bothered by the suitcase, tho i had mine dragging behind me, too. and it was a small one. and lots of other people had various carts and things. but she didn't like gerri's suitcase. so she called security. and this weasely little guy came over and took the suitcase, and then instructed the lady to start processing selling gerri her items. i followed the suitcase, which he took to customer service, showed it to them, they exchanged a few words. then he returned with the suitcase to the same check-out lane, but didn't give it back to us. i called my friend irina to see if she could speak to him by telephone to find out what the deal was. he told her everything was ok, that someone would be right back and it would be ok. that's it. so we waited, with the guard and the offending suitcase. and no one came. but he wouldn't let us touch the suitcase, kept saying "seechas, seechas" which means "now" indicating someone was coming imminently. but in russia, "now" can mean a lot of different things, but rarely does it mean what it says...it usually means "sometime in the future." so finally after about 20 minutes of standing there waiting, we just started putting gerri's food into the suitcase, which really made the guy mad. but no one was coming "seechas" and we had our receipts, and they don't sell suitcases in this "costco of moscow" so there was no way they could accuse her of stealing. and he didn't speak english or make any attempt to explain, he just yelled at us "seechas!" and looking away as if someone was going to come. so we packed up the bag, frustrated, hungry, overwhelmed and pissed off. i called irina back, and when i tried to hand the phone to the guy, he waved me off. he didn't want to talk to my russian friend to tell her what was going on, or what he wanted us to do. and then another guard approached and inquired (in russian) as to what was going on. gerri showed her receipt, showed the food we were packing up, said the suitcase was hers. it was clear we were upset and confused and very frustrated. he simply leaned down to us, apologetically said "excuse me" and escorted the other guard away. and we were left alone. no explanation. so we packed up the suitcase, exited out an alternative route (didn't want to walk by the weasel guard in case he thought of something else to do), still frustrated and bewildered, but at least we were free! it was the most bizarre thing. no idea what the issue was. still don't. but i don't have any plans for going back to the Ashan anytime soon. i can get everything i really need at a closer store. that allows suitcases. and no weasely security guards. we arrrived home around 8pm exhausted, wet (it began to rain), confused, and really bummed out that this stupid experience had taken up our whole day (we left around 3pm). we bought small bread pies on the way home, opened a bottle of wine and sat and watched the nature channel (one of a few we can get in english). defeated. and hoping for a better day tomorrow.
oh the joys of living abroad. sometimes it just doesn't work like you want it to. and while sometimes that happens at home, too, at least you can speak the language!
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